New state law reduces Buncombe County early voting sites

ASHEVILLE – Buncombe County voters will have four fewer places to cast their ballots before Election Day this year because of action by the state General Assembly.

But a recent decision by the State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement means there will be a total of 11 early voting sites in the county instead of the 10 that local officials had planned to conform to requirements of a new state law.

The line at the Enka-Candler Library wraps around the corner of the building on the first day of ...more

The line at the Enka-Candler Library wraps around the corner of the building on the first day of early voting in 2016 as people wait to cast their ballots.

Angeli Wright/awright@citizen-times.com

The state board approved a plan to have two early voting locations in the downtown area instead of the one site that three of the county Board of Election's four members had wanted.

The county board's chairman says one site would be enough to handle voters in and around downtown. The member who persuaded the state board to approve two said not using one would make it harder for minority voters and others to cast ballots.

Voters line up in Marshall to cast ballots on the first day of early voting during the 2016 ...more

Voters line up in Marshall to cast ballots on the first day of early voting during the 2016 presidential election.

Paul Eggers/paul@newsrecordandsentinel.com

Decisions over where, when and how North Carolinians can cast ballots have been fraught with political and racial overtones since the legislature reduced the period for early voting, sometimes called one-stop voting, by a week as part of a package of voting law changes passed in 2013.

The 2013 law also required a photo ID to vote, ended the ability to register and vote the same day at early voting sites and stopped a program to get teenagers registered ahead of their 18th birthdays.

Several of the changes disproportionately affect African-American voters, who tend to vote Democratic. Republicans control both houses of the General Assembly.

Supporters of the changes said they were needed to avoid fraud and improve election operations, not to give the GOP an advantage, but Democrats said they were a power grab.

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A federal appeals court later struck much of the law down, saying it was an unconstitutional move to "target African-Americans with almost surgical precision."

The General Assembly passed a new law this year that sets uniform weekday hours for early voting sites across the state, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

That is an additional financial burden for some counties, many of which usually opened sites for fewer hours each day or began the early voting period with only a few sites open and increased the number as Election Day drew closer. Some have reduced the number of sites they plan to operate this year as a result.

That is what's happening in Buncombe County. The county elections board made a budget request to county government with plans to open 15 early voting sites.

Hendersonville Middle School 7th graders give their thoughts on the election.

Angela Wilhelm/awilhelm@citizen-times.com

After the legislature changed the law, local elections staffers told the board the roughly $309,000 budgeted for one-stop voting sites was only enough to operate 10 because of the extra hours they will have to be open.

The plan means there will be no one-stop site in Woodfin, Bent Creek, Swannanoa or Jupiter in northern Buncombe County, all areas that had a site during the last mid-term election in 2014. The number of sites in southern Buncombe County drops from two to one.

Three board members, two Republicans and one Democrat, agreed to the staff plan July 19. But the other member, Democrat Jake Quinn, voted against it, saying another site in the downtown area was needed. That by law left the issue for the state board to decide.

One of the downtown-area sites will be a county building at 30 Valley St. on the east end of downtown. The other will be the Dr. Wesley Grant Sr. Southside Center, a city-owned community building at 285 Livingston St., in an area with a large African-American population.

A look at voters across Buncombe and Haywood Counties in Western North Carolina on Election Day.

Maddy Jones/mjones@citizen-times.com

County Board Chairman Jay Watson told the state board at a meeting Sunday in Winston-Salem that the average number of voters at each early voting site in 2014 was only two per hour.

In the unlikely event that the number of people voting early more than doubles from 2014, having 10 sites this year would mean there would still be only five voters per hour at each site, Watson said.

"Even factoring in a number much greater than the historical data would suggest, the plan that we're proposing would more than adequately meet the demand," he said.

"It is hard for the board ... to justify adding a site downtown when you've got whole areas (of the county) that simply aren't covered," Watson said, and it doesn't make sense to ask the county for the $40,000 in additional funds it would take to add a site if voting numbers do not show a need.

A woman is seen casting a ballot in between both a North Carolina State and the United States flags ...more

A woman is seen casting a ballot in between both a North Carolina State and the United States flags at the Buncombe County Board of Elections building located at 77 McDowell St. on Dec. 9, 2015.

William Woody / wwoody@citizen-times.com

But Quinn told the state board the Grant Center had been a one-stop site in the past and would not duplicate the 30 Valley St. site.

The center is nearly 2 miles south of the center of downtown and about the same distance north of Biltmore Village.

The 30 Valley St. site is close to different neighborhoods with a significant African-American population and not quite 2 miles away from the Grant Center.

Quinn said he had a letter from Brownie Newman, chairman of the county Board of Commissioners, indicating support for additional funding needed to hold early voting at the Grant Center.

Quinn told the state board he shares other county board members' "concern about our budget, but I am even more concerned about fulfilling our duty to the public to make voting as accessible as we can."

The state board chose Quinn's 11-site plan over the 10-site staff plan on a 5-4 vote.

Quinn said afterward that budget issues will not be a big problem. "I think we're going to see more people get to vote, and that's what's important here," he said.

Where to vote?

The number of early voting sites in rural and suburban parts of Buncombe County will decline this year over the number used in 2014, the last general election in which the presidential race was not on the ballot. However, the number of days for early voting will increase from 10 in 2014 to 18 this year, with early voting beginning Oct. 17.